


christmas cookies - a seblos oneshot <3

by musicaltheatrewannabe



Category: High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (TV)
Genre: M/M, theatre husbands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 01:48:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21919465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musicaltheatrewannabe/pseuds/musicaltheatrewannabe
Summary: christmas fic in which carlos wants to make cookies for the cast party post-production but is a disaster and seb ~experienced baker~ offers to help - they're in the 'what are we?' phase so they talk about and establish their relationship!
Relationships: Carlos/Seb Matthew-Smith
Comments: 6
Kudos: 51





	christmas cookies - a seblos oneshot <3

Carlos gave a quick wave to the librarian as he walked past her desk towards the tables at the back of the room. He made a beeline for the empty corner seat and sat down, swinging his bag onto the table. Feigning academic productivity, he took out his history notebook but then immediately got out his phone. He wanted to bake something for the cast party that Sunday after their last performance, and he needed to find the easiest possible Christmas-themed recipe if he was going to have any chance at avoiding disaster. It would not have been an exaggeration to say that Carlos was terrible at baking; somehow, despite following the recipe, something always went wrong. He started scrolling through holiday Tasty videos until he landed on a sugar cookie recipe that didn’t look too difficult.

Carlos narrowed his eyes, studying the video with the same level of intensity he usually reserved for dance, so he didn’t notice the figure approaching him from behind. He felt a tap on his shoulder and jumped in his seat, ripping his headphones out of his ears and dropping his phone onto the table. He was irritated that he had been interrupted but the feeling vanished when he turned to see Seb leaning over his chair, goofy grin and all. “Oh my God, Seb, don’t scare me like that!” Carlos laughed, unable to stop a smile from forming on his face.

Seb chuckled sheepishly, “Sorry! I just wanted to come say hi, cause Mr. Mazzara let us out of physics early and I knew you had study hall so… hi?”

“Hi,” Carlos replied, smiling at the fact that Seb knew his schedule.

After a brief pause, Seb looked around and muttered, “well, sorry for disturbing you I guess…” He trailed off and started to walk away before Carlos grabbed his hand and blushed.

“Wait! No, you weren’t disturbing me, I mean, I wasn’t getting much homework done anyways- sit down!” Carlos rambled, “only if you want, of course…” Seb laughed and pulled out the chair next to Carlos, dropping his bag on the ground and plopping himself down.

Seb glanced knowingly back and forth between Carlos and his untouched history notebook. “So, what’s up, if you’re not doing work?” he asked, nudging Carlos with his shoulder.

Carlos bit his lip, hesitating. “Well, I wanted it to be a surprise,” he confessed, “but I’m gonna try to make Christmas cookies for the cast party- the key word here being try, because I have never successfully baked anything in my life.” Carlos laughed, “I was looking for an easy recipe to follow.” He picked up his phone again and showed Seb the video.

“Do you want some help? I’m sure you’ll be fine, I mean, but if you want…? It’s pretty much an expectation in my family for someone to be making baked goods at any given moment,” Seb chuckled.

Carlos felt his heart flutter at the thought of making cookies with Seb. “Yes, definitely! I seriously need you…” he blushed and inwardly cringed at how that sounded. “I would greatly appreciate your baking expertise, I mean,” Carlos corrected with a giggle.

“Well, I don’t know about expertise…” Seb trailed off. “But ok great, I’ll be there. When are you gonna make them?”

“I was thinking Saturday morning, if that works for you? At like 11:00?” Carlos suggested.

“Yep, sounds good!” Seb grinned. “Do you need me to bring anything?”

Carlos thought for a moment. “Actually yeah, I have a few cookie sheets but not any cookie cutters-“

“Say no more,” Seb cut him off. “I’ve got three different sets of Christmas cookie cutters and I will bring them all,” he deadpanned.

“Amazing, thank you,” Carlos laughed, and opened his history notebook, sighing. “I guess I should probably at least try to get some of my homework done for the last twenty minutes that we’re here.”

Seb got out and opened his math textbook. “Look at me, being a good influence on you!” he joked, earning a soft smile from Carlos, who groaned at the prospect of schoolwork.

.

At 10:45 on Saturday morning, Carlos was waiting in his kitchen, pacing back and forth. He had gotten out all of the ingredients and measuring equipment and had arranged them into a display of sorts in anticipation. He was excited to see Seb of course, but he was nervous about it too. They hadn’t properly talked about what they were yet, even though they had both clearly indicated that they liked each other. They had been in this limbo for almost a month, and now that they were nearing winter break and wouldn’t have a reason to see each other for a few weeks, Carlos knew he should bring it up. But he would have to get through the baking first. Luckily Carlos’ mom had gone to a friend’s house for coffee, so he didn’t have to go through the awkwardness of introducing Seb as a… friend?

A few minutes before 11:00, because of course he was punctual, Seb rang the doorbell. In fact, he had already been there hesitating on Carlos’ front porch for five minutes, debating whether or not he was too early. Carlos took a deep breath, opened the door and, unable to conceal his excitement, said “hey!” Seb stood there in a red flannel shirt with his glasses on, and Carlos thought he might combust just from looking at him for more than a few seconds at a time.

“Hello!” Seb nodded to and held up two bags of baking supplies, “I come bearing gifts!”

Carlos stepped back to let Seb in and walked him to the kitchen. “Thanks so much for helping, I really appreciate it!”

“It’s no problem, I love to bake! Maybe I should be playing Zeke…” he laughed. “Besides, I also love spending time with you.”

“I do appreciate your well-roundedness, but you’re incredible as Sharpay,” Carlos asserted, hoping his blush wasn’t too obvious. “And same here, I love spending time with you- believe it or not, I’m not just using you for your talents.”

Seb gave Carlos a small smile and put his bags down on the kitchen counter. “Well, I brought the cookie cutters, as requested, and I thought I’d throw these in in case things got messy…” he chuckled, pulling out two aprons. He started putting on the one that said ’Tis the Season’ and tossed the ‘Merry Christmas’ one to Carlos.

“Ok, these are adorable,” Carlos said, looping the apron over his neck.

“Here, I got it,” Seb grabbed Carlos’ apron strings and tied them together in a loose bow at his back. Carlos’ breath was stopped short by the sensation for the fleeting moment before Seb spun him back around and said, “there we go!”

Carlos struck a pose and laughed, turning the oven on. “Let’s get started,” he said with a clap and Seb rubbed his hands together.

They mixed the butter, sugar and eggs with no problems, Seb instructing Carlos, who pretended to know what he was doing. Seb reached for the bag of flour and tried - unsuccessfully - to rip it open. “Here, I’ve got it,” Carlos held out his hand expectantly.

Seb raised his eyebrows with a smile, “if you say so.” He passed Carlos the flour and watched in amusement as the other boy struggled as well.

Finally Carlos managed to rip the bag open, but with a bit too much force, spilling flour out onto the counter and up into his own face. Seb pursed his lips but couldn’t contain his laughter as Carlos rolled his eyes. “Of course this happens,” he started to gather up some of the thin layer of flour that had fallen on the counter. Once he had gathered enough into his hands, he turned to Seb and blew it onto his face, earning a gasp from the blonde boy who had thought he was just cleaning.

“Hey! That’s unfair,” Seb patted his hand into the flour covering the counter and reached out toward Carlos’ hair. Carlos realized what Seb was doing and let out a shriek, running around the kitchen table with the other boy chasing him. He quickly found himself cornered behind the table and reluctantly let Seb’s floury hand ruffle his hair. “Gotcha!” Seb exclaimed, and his goofy grin was enough to make Carlos feel bold.

“I forgive you for messing up my hair, but only because you’re so cute,” Carlos admitted, making Seb blush, even through the flour.

Seb looked like he wanted to say something, but instead took both of Carlos’ hands and walked backwards toward the counter, pulling the other boy with him. “Let’s finish making this dough so we can get the first batch in the oven,” he said, dumping some flour into the bowl.

“You didn’t even measure that out!” Carlos laughed, leaning on the counter.

“As Miss Jenn always says, trust the process,” Seb smirked and started mixing the dough, getting it quickly to the perfect consistency.

Once they had rolled out the dough and cut out a bunch of Christmas trees, Santa hats and snowmen, they put the first batch in the oven and set the timer for ten minutes. Carlos pulled out a stool from the table to sit down and Seb followed suit. Registering the silence, Carlos knew that this was when he should say something, but he couldn’t think of how to bring it up. He was about to speak when Seb said, “so I wanted to talk about something.”

“Um, yeah, me too,” Carlos nodded, his eyes darting up to meet the blonde boy’s. “But go ahead,” he added with a nervous chuckle.

“Ok, well, you know how we went to homecoming together and have been hanging out a lot in rehearsals?” Seb’s smile had disappeared and his face showed how anxious he was. Carlos swallowed the lump in his throat but could still only manage a nod. Seb took an audible breath, “I guess I was just wondering if we were only spending time together because of the musical or if, maybe, you wanted this to be something… else?” Seb broke eye contact for the first time and glanced down at his fidgeting hands.

Carlos exhaled and said, “yes,” but when Seb met his eyes he had a look of confusion on his face. “Oh wait, I’m so dumb, you asked an ‘or’ question,” Carlos laughed nervously. “The second one - I meant that I do want this to be something else - something more - but only if that’s what you want of course.”

Seb’s eyes lit up again. “You do?” he asked, in genuine disbelief that Carlos cared about him beyond the drama department. Carlos nodded earnestly, waiting for Seb’s response. “Because, yes, I do! I mean, I want us to be more than friends,” Seb added, his face beet red.

Carlos grinned uncontrollably and his heart was pounding wildly in his chest. “Ok, so, do you want me to be your... boyfriend?” he ventured, tentatively reaching out his hand toward Seb’s.

Seb just nodded and squeezed Carlos’ hand, surging forward to close the distance between them. When their lips met Carlos felt like time had frozen in the space between two of his heartbeats, the sensation was so surreal. After taking a moment to respond, his eyes squeezed shut and his free hand instinctively reached up to cup Seb’s cheek as he kissed back. Carlos could feel Seb smiling into the kiss, which made him smile too until they both just started giggling.

“Boyfriends,” Seb stated, testing out the word and grinning, “it sounds good, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” Carlos agreed, still in shock at what had just happened. He rested his chin on his hand, looked at Seb and said, “you seriously are so cute, I don’t know how to handle it.”

“Stoop,” Seb giggled and blushed even more when suddenly the timer rang, jarring the boys out of their giddy daze.

Carlos jumped up from his stool and walked over to the oven to get the cookies - which looked perfect - out and put in the next batch. Seb got up too and started punching out more cookies. Carlos set down the hot cookie sheet and turned to help, rolling his eyes but unable to keep from smiling when he saw what Seb had done. “You’re ridiculous,” he said.

Using the butter knife on the counter, Seb had carved out three new cookie shapes: an S, a C and a heart. He placed them proudly on the cookie sheet and smiled at Carlos, saying, “ta da!”

Carlos planted his hands on the counter on either side of Seb and pushed his body against the other boy’s. They lingered for a few moments with their faces inches apart, both of their eyes flickering back and forth between the other’s lips and eyes, before Carlos kissed him. Seb’s arms wrapped around Carlos’ neck, one hand running through his still floury hair. Carlos pulled away and placed a soft kiss on Seb’s nose, inciting a giggle in response. “I’m really glad you offered to help me bake…” Carlos said quietly, grabbing Seb’s hand.

“I’m really glad Mr. Mazzara let us out of physics early,” Seb adjusted Carlos’ crooked glasses and grinned before they finished up with the cookies. Carlos had gained some questionable baking skills, flour in his hair and a boyfriend - it had been a successful morning indeed.


End file.
